Open Your Eyes
by BeccaBreaksThings
Summary: When stubborn Taryn Aslow finds herself the centre of a strange boy's attentions, being blind is suddenly the least of her problems. With him come a whole host of problems she's not quite sure she's ready to face. When the two of them are thrust into a world of soulmates and psychopaths, can love really prevail?
1. Chapter 1 - Helper

People walked past with little regard for the girl with the empty eyes. She stared blankly ahead, her hands spread wide on the short wall she used as a perch – luckily Taryn Aslow had attended Hopkins' High long enough to know her way around blindfolded. _Or just blinded, _she thought bitterly, _that fits much better. _On account of her not-so-cheery demeanour, Taryn usually ended up sitting alone. On this particular day she couldn't muster the enthusiasm to drag her fingers over the complex dots of the books she loved – the headmaster, bless her, had taken the time out of her busy schedule to order every textbook Taryn needed in Braille. The publicity she got from her blinded student didn't hurt, either.

An obnoxious ringing interrupted her thoughts, the sound instantly recognisable as the bell signalling the end of precious free time. Taryn heard the lumbering steps of a crowd forming on the path in front of her, listened to the chattering of students who hadn't done their homework, or were worried about some big upcoming test. They paid her no mind other than subtle sidestepping to make sure nobody touched her – if there was one thing to learn fast about Taryn, it was that you didn't want to get on her bad side. She could be brutal if she needed to be, no matter how unnecessary others might think her overreactions were.

Taryn pushed to her feet slowly, counting in her head exactly how many steps it would take her to get back to the main building. It was a tall order making it around unassisted, but she usually managed okay. On the few occasions she couldn't, the girl was forced to swallow her pride, listen for a familiar voice, and ask for help.

Asking for help was not something Taryn did often – it made her feel weak and unworthy, a parasite on all things ordinary. She didn't like the idea of people thinking of her that way, after all, what good was a girl who couldn't tell left from right? What good was a girl who needed a hand to hold to go about her daily life, or one of those damn dogs by her side twenty-four/seven? Taryn Aslow would _not _be that girl.

She sucked in a breath and began her measured decent down the slight grassy hill that provided a pleasant short cut when the worst happened. She tripped on some obstruction in her path, something that hadn't been there on the way up. Taryn squeezed her blank eyes shut and brought her arms up to shield her face from the worst of harm.

Taryn hit the ground with a thud, taking the worst of it on her left side as her elbow cracked against the path at the bottom of the short hill. She could practically feel the eyes staring at her, _laughing _at her, as she tried to curl up in a tiny ball and play possum. The humiliation hurt almost as much as the fall itself – there would be bruises, and a trickle of blood down her cheek sent a shiver down the girl's spine. It didn't feel too serious, yet still it had been a nasty fall. Just another to add to her already extensive list of reasons she shouldn't leave her bedroom.

Thankfully, she heard the hurried footsteps of people leaving the scene. Taryn grit her teeth and pushed her palms against the rough pavement to heave herself up, doing her best to ignore the painful throbbing in her left elbow. Just as she scrambled to her knees, a hand wrapped itself around her wrist over the sleeve of her woollen jacket to help her to her feet. The force exerted was undeniable, though there was a definitive gentility to the way it pulled her upwards, an arm wrapping around her waist to steady her. For a second, Taryn was mystified. At first she thought it might have been one of the few girls she consented to talk to, though as she took a breath of air clouded with cologne and sheer masculinity, that thought went out the window.

"You okay?"

Taryn turned her head upward in response to the voice, deep and strong. There was a lilt to it, an accent she couldn't quite place. Genuine concern, too, which was odd. _He must be new, _she thought miserably, _doesn't know about me yet. Or he's just plain stupid._

She nodded, took a quick step back to break the dizzying contact before she could descend into idiocy. Taryn swallowed her pride with a hearty scoop of reluctance as she forced painful words from her sore throat. "Thank you, whoever you are."

A pleasant chuckle filled her self-imposed silence, shocking Taryn into the beginnings of anger.

"I'm a friend," he said. "Just be careful next time, okay?"

Taryn shrugged her shoulders and feigned indifference. With her eyes half-closed, she gestured back the way she guessed she'd come and told him, "I'm fine. Just didn't notice that thing." _Whatever it is, _a not-so-helpful voice in her head added, _just hope he doesn't see right through you, clever girl._

"There's nothing there," the stranger replied, confusion heavy in his voice.

"There must be." Taryn huffed and clenched her jaw, taking three quick steps back. Anger coloured both her cheeks and her words a nasty red. "I might be _blind_ but I'm not _stupid. _I wouldn't just trip over _thin air._"

The boy stepped forward and set a gentle hand on Taryn's upper arm with just enough force to stop her shaking. "Calm down," he soothed, "somebody pro'ly moved it. Y'know, stop anyone else from hurting themselves? I think I saw a girl do that just now, come to think of it."

"Don't touch me!" Taryn snapped and wriggled free. A second bell rang out and she nearly jumped out of her skin – for the first time in an age, she was _late. _"Crap, crap, crap," she muttered, turning on her heel to scurry along the path. Just as she thought she was closing in on the main building, his helpful voice called out from behind her.

"You're going the wrong way!"

"I knew that." Taryn stopped dead in her tracks and muttered a string of violent obscenities. The fall had thrown her off, she'd blame it all on that. If she didn't have such an appetite for academics, she might have given up on the day entirely and gone home to brood in silence. Taryn turned just as quickly as she'd stopped, hands out to prevent any further trips – distantly, she wished she'd brought the cane the doctor had given her to help her get around better.

Footsteps to her right. The boy was keeping pace with her. "I'll walk you to your lesson," he offered. Taryn could hear the smile in his voice. "I think we're in the same class."

"I don't need your damn help," Taryn growled, shoving out at the space she guessed him to be in. Whether out of politeness or pity, he let her take her pathetic hits in silence. She was surprised when he didn't follow her any further, a painful pinch in her chest. _Maybe he was just trying to help, _she thought. His intentions seemed sincere – he only wanted to stop her from getting herself into more trouble. Taryn's conscience rambled away at her the entire way to her Psych class.


	2. Chapter 2 - Visitor

Taryn sat at the back of the classroom, the same desk she'd inhabited since day one, with her head down and her eyes closed to better help her focus on what was being said. Try as she might, she found it hard to stop herself from listening to the relentless voices in her head which went on and on about how stupid she'd been.

_Stubborn brat, _one said, _why can't you just let them help you? It's not like it's going to make any difference to what they think of you. Hell, they'd probably like you better if you actually tried to make some friends instead of playing the lonely bitch all the time. They pity you and you're just letting them do it._

That comment proved exactly what she needed to bring herself back to the present. Taryn lifted her head from the table and shifted slightly in the direction of her aged professor's voice – they were discussing schizophrenia, more specifically symptoms often ignored by the general public. She enjoyed Psychology, it was a challenge because she didn't have the chance to refer to charts and scans like the others, Taryn relied solely on her instinct and facts memorised courtesy of audio books and internet lectures. Her professor was a gem, too, when it came to making things that much easier.

A familiar feeling of discomfort settled over her just as she traced her fingers over the cover of her special order textbook. Somebody was watching her. It wasn't hard for Taryn to tell, she could feel cool and critical eyes burning holes wherever they focused. She began to squirm, wishing away whoever it was when they didn't seem to have the common courtesy to turn away and allow her some privacy. It took all she had to prevent herself from yelling out and disrupting the class – Taryn was lucky she managed to hold out until the end of the lesson. Thankfully it was her last of the day, she'd be able to go home and go recluse for the evening and weekend. Bliss.

She reached down and collected the bag propped against her chair, sliding her textbooks into it – gently, so as not to disturb her recent injuries – before shouldering it and pushing out of her seat. When the surrounding footsteps had died down enough that she thought it safe to avoid the stampede, Taryn made an instinctual beeline for the door – it was one of the little tasks she had mastered, fortunately, so she hoped to avoid another accident.

Just as her fingers brushed the doorknob, a hand reached out and tapped her on the shoulder. On instinct, Taryn wheeled around and flung out her hands to defend herself, colliding with something solid in the process. She yelped.

"Whoa there. You alright?"

"You again." Taryn gritted her teeth against the fresh pain in her bruised arm, narrowing her unseeing eyes in the direction of the accented voice she was already beginning to despise. "Can't leave me alone for five freaking minutes?"

"No, I-"

"Save it," she snapped, "I don't need you, I don't need to be patronised, I don't need your damn pity."

"I was jus' gonna say you left your jacket hanging on the back of your chair," he explained, sending a ferocious blush straight to Taryn's cheeks. She didn't say a word as his hand abandoned her shoulder to reach for her bare arm, turning it to place the jacket in her grip. Only, it didn't get that far.

The moment the warm skin of his fingers closed on her tiny wrist everything stopped. It felt, she imagined, like being struck by lightening. A soft 'oh' worked its way through her pursed mouth, the sound shot back at her by the boy with the accent. His grip tightened for a fraction of a second, sending volts of warm and sweet all through her, before his fingers slackened and dropped to his side.

"I'm, uh..."

Taryn shook her head and reached out blindly to snatch her jacket. She didn't say another word as she stumbled through the door, desperate to put some space between herself and the boy with no name. Whatever he'd done to her, she vowed he wouldn't be getting that opportunity again. Taryn Aslow didn't take too kindly to being drugged.

Little less than an hour later and Taryn was home and comfortably in her room at Caplin's Children's

Home, having been dropped off by the taxi commissioned to take her and the other kids to and from school as efficiently as possible. Her bed was a safe place surrounded by thick cushions and careful stacks of her possessions she knew by touch alone – Mrs Caplin had even gone as far as taking photos of the place to make sure everything went back exactly where it had come from.

However safe Taryn's den was, it didn't stop the bouncy young intruder who hopped, skipped, and jumped to see her, landing painfully on her stomach as she lay splayed out on the cushion pile.

"Smoky!" called Kim, third youngest resident of Caplin's. Taryn, at, seventeen, was almost eleven years her senior – she was the second oldest resident of Caplin's, too, with her superior a boy named Connor born exactly two months before her. Connor was terrible company, so Taryn had settled for the playful Kim as her adoring young confidant.

Taryn had arrived at Caplin's little after her eleventh birthday, following a drink-driving accident which had killed both her parents – she tried not to think about that any more than she had to. Kim, on the other hand, had been there since she was only a year old. In comparison, Taryn had to consider herself lucky. That, she thought, was probably why she took such care to be nice to Kim.

"Hey, kiddo," Taryn cooed, enveloping the girl in a cautious hug. She could feel the fuzzy mess of Kim's hair – which, the girl had informed her on many an occasion, was sheep-white. Since Taryn had only lost her sight in her eleventh year, she was lucky enough to remember some colours, though, if asked, she couldn't describe a single one of them.

"They wanna see you in the office," Kim babbled between descriptions of her lively day. She bounced up and down by Taryn's head until the girl had no choice but to sit and acknowledge the worst of the worst – everyone knew if you were asked into the office it would never be good news. Kim didn't understand, luckily, so she maintained her enthusiasm as she took Taryn by the hand to lead her down and out into possibly the coldest corridor known to man. Caplin, while not a bad woman, sure had some frosty knickers.

"Kimmy," Taryn whispered, crouching to what she guessed to be the little girl's level. "Why don't you go play? I'll be out in a sec and we can take a walk or something. See if that nasty little dog wants to get some fresh air."

Her offer was met with cooing glee and a sloppy kiss planted on her left cheek. "Uh-huh!" Kim chirped, granting Taryn one last hug before her footsteps skipped away down the laminate hallway.

Taryn sighed and rose to her feet, pleased to hear the heavy breathing of the elderly Mrs. Caplin who waited in the door of her office. "Taryn," she said in a not unpleasant tone, "if you'd please step in here and take a seat, there's someone here to see you."

"I have a... I have a visitor?" Taryn scrunched up her nose in distaste. For the six years she'd been a resident of the children's home, not once had anyone from the outside come to see her. Not even a silly friend from school, or one of those try-hard foster parents who wanted to 'connect' with the poor, sad children.

"That's what I said, isn't it?" There was a worrying note of calm to the way Mrs. Caplin spoke, the way her hands closed over Taryn's shoulders as she approached and guided her into one of the plush chairs reserved for only the most esteemed members of the caring society. She could even smell fresh coffee – something was definitely up.

Taryn sighed and began to fiddle with the hem of her shirt. "Hate to break it to you," she said, faux-sweetly, "but you're gonna have to introduce yourself. I've got this condition, see..."

Mrs. Caplin tutted and Taryn could feel her disapproving gaze. "Now isn't the time, Taryn, this is-"

"If you don't mind, I'd rather introduce myself," said a lilting woman's voice, one Taryn was sure she had never heard before. "Taryn, sweetheart, I'm your mother."


	3. Chapter 3 - Oh, Mother

"My _mother?_" Taryn scoffed and wished she could see the looks on Mrs. Caplin's and this stranger's faces. Clearly she was being Punk'd, she'd heard kids at school talking about the show on more than one occasion. "What is this, some kind of dumb joke? Didn't peg you for the type, ma'am."

"You don't even know me yet," the imposter said.

Taryn shook her head. "I was talking to Mrs. Caplin," she snapped, "as in the woman who's raised me for the last few years. You know, after my parents _died._" While every instinct she had told her to shut up and listen, Taryn couldn't bring herself to do anything close to it. She had far too much to say. "And as far as I'm aware, people can't be brought back from the dead just yet – I'm sure they would have mentioned that on some TV show or another. So, with no due respect, lady, you should pack your damn bags and get the hell out of here."

"Taryn." Mrs. Caplin's voice was startlingly close to her ear, and it surprised Taryn that she couldn't hear the woman's breath. "Listen to what she has to say – this is important."

"No." Taryn shook her head, hair whipping about her face like a whirlwind. "No, I won't listen to any of this bull-"

The imposter cleared her throat and addressed Mrs. Caplin directly. "Might we have a moment alone? There are some things I'd like to discuss with her – in private."

It was a long time before Taryn heard Caplin's retreating footsteps, and then the tell-tale slam of the door as the woman disappeared into the corridor to eavesdrop. Taryn didn't want to break the silence that had fallen, not even with a thousand spluttered obscenities to the stranger in the room. Some way, somehow, her anger had dissipated.

"Who are you?" Taryn asked calmly, setting her hands in her lap. Her knees trembled, but she tried to still them by bracing her feet on the rough carpeted floor. "Honestly."

"Your mother," the woman said, insistent.

"No. Try again."

Taryn heard a sigh and waited for any further explanation, but it didn't come for a long time. All kinds of possibilities were running through her head – she was willing to stake her life on the fact that the woman, whoever she was, couldn't be her dear departed mother. However, something in the back of her mind said there was a connection, that she ought to know this woman. The longer they sat in that room together, the more she could _feel _it.

When the woman spoke again, Taryn could feel her smile, her gladness.

"You know, don't you?" the stranger said. "You know why I'm here."

"Haven't the foggiest."

"Think harder," she said. "Really think, about everything."

"Everything?" Taryn barked a laugh. "Right, so the meaning of life is 42, I do not like green eggs and ham, the chicken crossed the road because-"

"That isn't what I meant and you know it," the woman replied, her calm relentless and invasive. "Tell me you don't feel something. Tell me, honestly, that you don't feel a thing and I'll leave you be. I know how to admit a mistake when I make one, Taryn."

Taryn drummed her fingers against the desk, taking a long time to formulate her response. "Mistake like giving me up for adoption? Faking your death? Or maybe just being a crazed liar desperate enough for attention that she'd invade a children's home and create this elaborate BS? Yeah, I like the sound of that one."

"You didn't answer my question." The woman leaned across the desk and caught Taryn's hand in her own. Her skin was soft and smooth, though too cold for comfort.

Taryn snatched her hand back to her chest like it had been burned, fixing a sightless glare in the direction of the stranger's voice. "You didn't ask one," she hissed. "And don't touch me."

Instead of the irritation – anger at a push – which Taryn had expected, she was rewarded with nothing more than a pleasant, church-bells-ringing laugh from the woman. "I knew it," she said. "I know it."

"Know what?" Taryn shifted in her seat, kicking her legs out from under her. "For crap's sake, lady, either spit it out or get out. I have work to do, and I'm pretty god-damn tired right now."

"You met him, didn't you?"

"Met who?" Taryn asked. There was a horrid, sinking feeling in her gut that told her she knew exactly who the woman was talking about – jacket boy. "And what does this have to do with you pretending to by my mother? This just keeps getting better and better, maybe we should invite a crowd in to watch. It really would be a shame to put all your hard work plotting to waste."

The woman slid something small and square across the desk, waiting until Taryn grappled for what felt like card to explain, "When you see him next-"

"See," Taryn repeated bitterly. "Good one. Bonus points for humour."

"As I was saying." The stranger cleared her throat. "Give that to him – he'll know what to do with it. Then you'll understand, Taryn. I promise."

"Understand what?" Taryn fought hard not to rip the card in half, or maybe find a way to burn it. It was only the feeling that she'd want to know what it was later that forced her to slip it into her pocket instead. "Are we still going on with the mother charade? Or is this another totally new direction? You'll have to be patient with me, mum, I'm pretty slow."

There was a shift of material, a scrape of chair legs against the floor, and Taryn guessed her imposter was standing to leave. She pushed up herself, reaching over the desk to try and grab at the woman's wrist. She caught the smooth silk of a blouse end held it tight – close enough. "Don't run," she said. "Tell me who the hell you are first."

The woman's fingers carefully pried Taryn's open, far stronger than she would have expected. "Make sure he calls me." Her heels clicked along the floor and the door creaked open. "And Taryn?"

"What?" she growled, curling her hands into fists by her sides. If one more thing came to confuse her that day, she was going to flip. The window in Taryn's room was going to find itself smashed for the fifth time that year.

"Be careful."

Just like that, she was gone. All Taryn had to show for it was a scrap of card that, for all she knew, was completely blank. Some mother, if that was what she really was.

By nightfall, Taryn couldn't stay inside another minute. Mrs. Caplin had been interrogating her mercilessly about her mystery visitor, demanding to know everything about the woman with threats of taking away Taryn's privileges. The girl was more than happy to scoff and remind her carer that there were very few privileges she actually had left, and that she'd be happy to sacrifice the useless things, anyway.

When the questioning was over, she'd been quick to excuse herself from the company of the few other kids who could still stand to be around her. Taryn forced herself to play discrete as she slipped through the front door, willing herself to go under the radar lest Mrs. Caplin claim her freedom was a privilege which had been revoked. She just needed a minute alone to process the confusing, infuriating day she'd had.

Almost as soon as her feet had touched the pavement outside, she heard him. Jacket boy.

"Hey," he whispered, coming up to stand on her right. He extended his hand to cup her elbow over her shirt, guiding her until she'd turn the direction he wanted her to. "We need to get you out of here."

"Excuse me?" Common sense told Taryn not to yell – it wasn't the right time for that. With the woman's visit earlier that day, she had no reason not to think there was something much bigger going on. Good thing she didn't find herself so easily scared.

"Please, just..." He sighed and stirred the hair by her ear with his breath. "Just trust me on this, please. I'll explain everything, promise."

While it went against every fibre in her being, Taryn found herself wanting to trust him more than anything in the world. Being around the stranger made the tips of her fingers tingle in anticipation she just couldn't ignore. "If you do anything to me," she muttered, "I'll cut you."

"Deal."


End file.
